What happens to the waste from a roof replacement?

A pitched roof strip is heavy and bulky. The old tiles or slates are the largest part by weight, followed by the timber battens, the underlay, broken ridge and hip pieces, lead offcuts, rotten boards and the nails that come out with them. On a roof with a chimney, the old lead flashings and any redundant brickwork add to the pile. Gutters and fascias, if they are changed in the same visit, go in too.

MyBuilder's roof replacement guide, updated 21 August 2026, puts disposal at £100 to £1,000 as a typical national range, depending on the amount and the covering. Whether disposal and VAT are inside a quoted total is worth checking before you sign. Weight rises quickly with a heavy covering such as natural stone or old clay, and a roof carrying stacked felts, or a second covering laid over the first, can yield far more rubbish than the owner expects. The guide to Building Regulations for a re-roof covers the paperwork that follows the work. The main roof replacement page covers the wider job.

Most domestic re-roofs use a skip, or a grab lorry for larger roofs where space is tight. A skip needs level ground and clear access, and if it has to stand on the road it needs a permit from the council, with lights and cones at night. The crew should load it as they go, so debris never sits on a scaffold board for a week or blows into a neighbour's garden.

Roof waste is dense. A skip that looks half empty can already be at its weight limit, which is why roofing skips are often swapped part way through. Mention any narrow lane, low cable or parking restriction at the survey, so the lorry can reach the house without a wasted trip. Because we haul the waste off ourselves, nothing is left stacked against your fence at the finish. On a terrace with no front garden, ask who will keep the pavement clear and sweep up nails, since a stray roofing nail finds a tyre very easily.

Anyone who carries other people's construction waste must be a registered waste carrier. Defra's consultation on reform describes that activity as upper tier, and the Environment Agency keeps an online register that anyone can search by name or number. Request the roofer's number and look it up through the GOV.UK waste carrier page.

Why bother? Because the householder is part of the chain. If a stranger takes your old tiles and tips them in a lay-by, the trail can lead back to your front door. A genuine carrier can say where the load is going and keeps a transfer note. Be wary of a van with no signage, a cash-only price and no answer about where the waste ends up. Treat a very low price for a full strip with suspicion too, because someone is paying the tip fee somewhere, or it is not being paid at all.

Good material does not have to go to landfill. Sound natural slate and handmade clay tiles can often be sold on or reused, which our page on reusing old roof tiles explains. Concrete tiles that are past reuse are usually crushed at a recycling site and used as aggregate and hardcore. Clean timber can be chipped or burned for energy, and lead is scrap with real value, so it is collected and recycled rather than binned.

The mix matters. Bitumen felt, plastic membranes, insulation and rotten timber are usually sorted into general waste, and mixed loads cost more at a transfer station than clean ones. That is another reason a tidy crew who separates materials on site keeps the disposal side of the job sensible.

For any building put up or refurbished before 2000, HSE says to presume asbestos is there until shown otherwise. On roofs it appears as cement sheeting over garages and outbuildings, and sometimes as insulating board in soffits. The two are treated differently. Asbestos cement lifted carefully, without being broken, falls within HSE's non-licensed category; insulating board is mostly licensed work for specialist firms.

Never drill, smash or pressure-wash a suspect sheet. Once it is damaged, or will break up as it comes off, the work moves into the notifiable bracket. Household asbestos waste also travels with a consignment note, which the contractor completes as the waste producer. A sample sent to a laboratory settles the question, so arrange one before a price is agreed and let us know when the survey is booked.

Ask whether disposal is covered, who removes it, which carrier registration number they hold and where the waste is taken. Ask whether the price includes a skip permit and VAT, and whether the scaffold comes down at the end of the job. For a house with older outbuildings, ask what happens if the old garage roof turns out to contain asbestos.

Our quote is written, it follows the visit, and our workmanship carries a 10-year guarantee on paper that works as a promise rather than an insurance policy. Further reading includes replacing roof timbers, which creates its own waste, and the clues to a roof's age. If a metal covering is involved, see metal roofs on a house. To book a survey, phone 01793 626096.